The Valentine's Day Gambit
by Mint Pearl Voice
Summary: Although they share a mutual cynicism towards the holiday, Holmes decides to ask Irene to be his valentine. Elaborate pranks and various shenanigans ensue. Pre-movie, probably a threeshot.
1. Chapter One

Dear Irene,

Forgive me, but I am spending Valentine's Day with the girl my parents want me to marry. I hope you'll…

Dearest Irene,

Doubtlessly there is another man in your life. I shall not impose myself on you this Valentine's Day…

Irene, sweetheart.

Must dash to the countryside- a thousand, thousand apologies…

Irene flicked through the stack of letters, her expression growing considerably more sour with each one. How was it that, with all her various lovers, paramours, and admirers, she lacked a date for Valentine's Day? Even Godfrey Norton, who was one of her closest friends, (not to mention the only person, whether male or female, that she trusted to pick out clothes for her) was out of town with a man he'd met at a literature symposium.

She crossed to the hotel room's window and glanced out. On the street below, vendors hawked chocolates, and couples strolled arm in arm. Irene rested her forehead against the glass and sighed quietly. How could she of all people possibly lack company on Valentine's Day? Was there no one she could contact? She wanted nothing more than to destroy all those happy relationships and, metaphorically, at least, fling them into the Thames.

…Actually, that wasn't true. There was something she could imagine acquiring for herself as a present for Valentine's Day.

Or, to be more accurate, someone.

Irene smiled into the windowpane. It felt as smooth as ice under her lips.

She let herself in, as usual. Although an ordinary criminal- that is to say, one who hadn't understudied for a vaudeville troupe's escape artist throughout her childhood- would have found themselves stymied by the lock, Irene considered it a joke. She removed what looked like a perfume bottle from her reticule, unscrewed its top, and dabbed fine Italian olive oil onto the rusty hinges. They swung open soundlessly, and she tiptoed inside.

Holmes sat at his desk, his back to the door. Irene stepped towards him-

A long-fingered hand clapped itself over her mouth. "What are you doing here?"

Irene's first instinct was to struggle. If someone had broken into the flat before her- if they'd hurt Sherlock-

First, however, she stuck out her tongue; a slight intake of breath told her that she'd caught her captor off guard, and she twisted around, wrenching his wrist downwards and kicking him in that convenient pressure point directly behind the knee-

In all actuality, however, she never quite got that far. Before she could move, whoever-it-was had pinned her arms behind her back and shoved her into a chair. The figure, who wore a mask that obscured her face, advanced towards her.

Irene cracked up. Of course. Who else would be able to anticipate her movements so precisely? She smirked. "Good afternoon, Sherlock." (Of course, very little could persuade her to admit that she'd been worried about him.)

Holmes pulled off the mask, casually tossing it across the room; it hit a vase, knocking it to the carpet. He didn't look fazed. "To answer your question, yes, I am available on Valentine's Day, although I suspect that spending an inordinate amount of time in your presence could perhaps prove hazardous to my health."

Irene pursed her lips. "And would that be such a bad thing?"

He glanced away.

"How did you know that I wished to arrange an outing, then?"Irene asked, crossing her legs at the knee.

Holmes shrugged. "You break into my flat for three reasons: to oblige an employer, to keep me from investigating your latest theft, or because you're bored. To the best of my knowledge, you are not currently working for any of my enemies, and I have not seen any mentions of your exploits in the daily paper. Besides, Valentine's Day is the day after tomorrow, and I doubt that a woman of your caliber would be accustomed to spending the holiday of mandatory romance alone, as opposed to with a menagerie of hapless admirers falling at her feet." He ended the sentence with a hand resting on one of the chair's arms.

"Was that a compliment?"

Absentmindedly, without looking down, he brushed a stray curl back behind her ear. "What do you think?"

Irene didn't respond. Her fingertips trailed over the bedraggled, fuzzy fabric of his brown coat. Yes, she'd managed to avoid mention in the press, at least on this occasion. But if Holmes happened to correspond with the Polish embassy anytime soon… well, she'd have some serious explaining to do to the crowned heads of Europe. Only it wasn't my fault, she told herself with her usual pragmatism. It was a masquerade ball- how was I supposed to know that I'd made out with an already-engaged Germanic prince? All right, so the signet ring I stole did have his initials engraved on it, but…

"Well, since you continue to withhold your opinion, I shall voice one of my own. My faithless flatmate is spending Valentine's Day with a woman he met recently. For various reasons, I consider Valentine's Day the most moronic and abhorrent holiday in the universe; nevertheless, I am determined to discover what people see in it. Therefore, Miss Adler…" He took a deep breath, then looked directly at her. "Will you be my valentine?"

Carefully, Irene made her expression as enigmatic and in-control as possible, a slight smirk playing at the corners of her lips. Surely his romantic gesture had ulterior motives- hers almost always did, after all. For example, in visiting Baker Street, she'd hoped to distract Holmes from any international affairs surrounding her name. Yet she could swear that the emotions in his deep brown eyes appeared quite genuine. Nevertheless, she could not help but caution herself against getting too attached to anyone. Even Sherlock Holmes. "That depends," she said. A gleam of mischief played in the depths of her gaze. "Are you willing to work for it?"

"I am quite willing to work for anything I consider sufficiently interesting," he responded, a similar excitement flickering around the edges of his mouth. Almost immediately, his expression grew thoughtful. Irene knew that he was developing strategies in his head, the way that he did when he fought- or kissed her.

Time to depart, definitely. She couldn't allow herself to get distracted like this.

With an-I'm-still-highly-suspicious-of-your-motives nod, Irene rose to leave. "The Grand. Midnight tomorrow. I'll be waiting. Whether I chose to let you in or not-"

She pulled the door closed.


	2. Morning

Morning

The sky was barely light when she woke to someone pounding on her door. With a frustrated sigh, she threw a robe over her chemise and went to answer it.

An enormous bouquet of roses greeted her. A riot of orange and yellow, they seemed to explode from their pot.

Roses. Her favorite. Reflexively, she leaned forward to inhale their impossibly sweet scent.

"Delivery from the florist for one Irene Adler," the porter, whose face she couldn't see, chirped in a Cockney accent.

Irene kept her expression composed. "I didn't order flowers."

The roses bobbed with his shrug. "Your manservant did." The meaningful pause made it quite clear exactly what he thought of the implied living arrangement. "Said it was important. Dunno what you needed 'round twenty bouquets this big for, but…" He began to yammer on about how difficult it was to find unblemished roses this time of year, what with the late frosts and the aphid infestations at all. Something niggled at the back of Irene's mind. "Hang on," she said. "Twenty bouquets? This large?"

He shook his head. "Oh, no, miss. Definitely not twenty."

Irene let out a breath, relieved. "Good."

"Mmm-hmm. Upwards of thirty-five, at the least."

As it turned out, Holmes had visited every flower shop in London under a false name, each invented backstory more ridiculous than the last.

"He said he was the ex-husband you didn't have yet."

"I didn't hear all of it, but… something about giant rodents and drugged scones? Your third cousin twice removed was relieved to hear that your ankle had healed nicely."

"London's most scandalous opera star- getting married next week! I never heard the like of it!"

"He said you once shared a cell in an insane asylum… I dunno, does that ring a bell?"

By the time the last of what seemed like a small army of porters had finished clattering up and down the stairs, Irene's room looked as if a section of the Royal Botanical Gardens had unexpectedly taken up residence in between the furniture.

"One more, miss," the final porter said, handing her twelve red roses.

"Thank you, that's very lovely," Irene responded distractedly, cradling the bouquet to her chest. Yes, she loved roses, but having them blooming from every available surface seemed just the slightest bit inconvenient. Could she reach the Whitechapel street orphanage from here without having to pass through Lion Gang territory? Their leader was still terribly sore at Irene for putting him in jail. She pictured a map of London in her head, traced her route in diamonds-

"As are you." He winked, tipping his hat, and hurried off before she could slap the smile off his face. Was it just her, or did his expression and gait appear slightly familiar? No, surely she'd imagined it.

Irene ducked back into her room, closing the door behind her, and opened the card.

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

This round, at least,

Have I won over you?

Irene ran a fingertip over the angular scratches that composed Holmes's handwriting.

Then she laughed. Barely avoiding a pot of pink, loose-petaled flowers, she flung herself onto the bed and muffled her guffaws with a pillow, still chuckling helplessly. Part of her felt annoyed at herself, but part of her could hardly wait to see what would happen next.

The ink was still wet.

Holmes left the flat before sunrise, carrying a few basic elements of his disguise kit and a considerable amount of cash. He'd planned to use the same story for each florist, but then it occurred to him how much more amusing it would be to invent ridiculous alibis. Did she remember the affair with the giant rats of Sumatria, he wondered?

He started with yellow, "friendship, joy, and caring," mixing them with orange, "enthusiasm and desire, with an underlying message of passion and excitement." No white- they symbolized humility, purity, and innocence, not to mention reverence and truth, and he suspected that Irene could recognize flattery when she saw it. Deep pink was commonly intended to convey "gratitude and appreciation," so he ordered several of those as well, as well as lavender roses, which stood for "enchantment." He'd deliver the final bouquet himself, he decided, if only to watch her reaction. Blue roses, perhaps, symbolizing the unobtainable or impossible, much like Irene herself- she was always out of reach, choosing subtle sarcasm over genuine sentiment, guardedness over admitting anything.

And then he saw the red roses.

Long-stemmed and thornless, they had completely unblemished petals and a deep, glossy shine. How stereotypically romantic, he told himself, scoffing at the notion. Red roses- enduring passion and love, not to mention Irene's favorite. Of course, it would be a considerable risk to take when dealing with someone so clever, and who knew if she even felt similarly?

He could say that he was just trying to observe Valentine's Day properly. Yes, that sounded perfect. After all, ordinary people made foolishly romantic gestures on Valentine's Day, did they not?

He bought the red ones.

Later, after delivering the final bouquet to Irene's lodgings, Holmes returned to Baker Street to fetch additional coinage and alter his disguise considerably. He ran in through the front door, sprinted up the stairs-

Paper boxes, stacked like floral-printed bricks, blocked the entrance to the flat. Additionally, a lanky young man (a messenger boy for one of London's most expensive chocolate stores, by the looks of him) leaned against the wall, smoking a cheap cigarette.

"Why are these boxes of chocolates obstructing the doorway?" Holmes asked.

He shrugged. "I'd think you'd know. Your mistress ordered them, not mine. She told us to put them there."

Cautiously, Holmes prodded one of the boxes. It didn't move. "How many chocolates are we talking about?"

"Dunno… the wall's three or four layers deep, though."

Holmes turned around and headed back down the stairs.

"Oi! Where're you going! You have to sign off on these."

"I'm getting a battering ram," Holmes called back. As he ran out the front door and into the street, forcing several cabs to clatter to a halt at the last possible moment, he couldn't help chuckling to himself. Trust Irene to pay back his extravagant gesture with an even more ridiculous one of her own.


	3. Afternoon with bonus info list!

Holmes did not know it, but Irene occasionally took on a few cases of her own. Women, especially those in delicate situations, often felt uncomfortable going to a male detective for help- and, in case she ever fell astray of the law in a way that couldn't be remedied by a sweet smile and a bit of lock-picking, it was important to have allies on the outside who were neither members of London's criminal underworld nor impoverished shopgirls, but respectable women with disrespectable problems.

Such as the woman who sat in front of her, dabbing at reddening eyes with a linen handkerchief. "My husband simply disappeared, Miss Adler," she said in between distraught sniffles.

Irene handed the woman- Mrs. Martinson- her second-best handkerchief.

Mrs. Martinson took it and blew her nose into it. This was why she never offered clients her best handkerchief.

Leaning forward in her chair, Irene asked, "What makes you suspect that it was foul play?"

"Well… nothing, to be honest. I just can't imagine him leaving me!"

I can, Irene thought. It was nothing to do with her client- Mrs. Martinson was rather pretty in the tall, blonde, willowy sort of way that Irene always half-envied, or at least she would be if she'd stop crying. Some men just had an aversion to marriage. They woke up one day and realized that they were dying of boredom, and that if they didn't escape, they'd go mad- or, even worse, waste their lives. Irene had felt that way about several of her husbands. In fact, she'd even faked her death to escape the last one, an unscrupulous Russian businessman. Yes, he'd deluded himself into believing that he truly loved her, not just the way she flattered him, meaning that he'd be deeply hurt by her supposed 'drowning.' However, black looked good on him, so he'd probably have a new wife within the year. Not to mention that he'd kicked her cat…

Irene put on her most sympathetic expression. Even though part of her could understand their motives, she despised husbands who abandoned their wives. "I'll have him back safe and sound within the week."

Mrs. Martinson blew her nose again.

"Irene! Irene's here!"

Maggie and Elizabeth were the sort of girls Irene could see herself as having been if she'd grown up on the streets of London instead of in a touring vaudeville troupe. Maggie, short and sturdy with perpetually tangled red curls, led a gang of younger children. She had a stubborn temperament and a gift for pickpocketing that Irene considered invaluable. Elizabeth- taller, frailer, with flaxen hair- was Maggie's second-in-command. No one ever suspected that, under Irene's tutelage, the delicate-looking child had learned to throw a mean punch. They hugged her simultaneously, spinning her around; to humor them, Irene acted like they'd made her lose her balance, even though nothing ever did.

"Oi, you!" Maggie called, pulling away. "Did any of you hear me? I said, Irene's here!"

Within seconds, a girl with short dark hair climbed down a fire escape; a pair of twins in blue pinafores ran out from a doorway; and the tiny creature who'd been sitting under a nearby lamppost with a basket of paper flowers nearly dropped them in her hurry to join her friends. Irene sat down on a building's front stoop and let the girls swarm her.

"You'll never believe what I got away with yesterday," Maggie shouted into Irene's ear.

Elizabeth displayed a bruise on her forearm- "You should've seen the other guy!"

Zylphia, the girl with short, dark hair, bounced on the tips of her toes. "I been practicing that tumbling trick-"

"Irene," Charity and Chastity sang simultaneously. Glass cracked in a window across the street- she'd taught them well.

Katherine, who had the most unsettling blue eyes, tucked her basket under her arm. "I've practiced watching everyone who passes by, just like you told me to-"

Irene's girls, they called themselves, with an unselfconcious pride that made her want to laugh and cry simultaneously if she thought about it too much.

She had gifts for them all, as usual: lollipops, sheet music, hair ribbons, and Russian nesting dolls. After listening to Elizabeth's blow-by-blow account of a tussle with an Irregular, she brought up the case. "Have you seen- or heard- anything about a Mr. Martinson? He's about six feet two inches tall, red hair turning white at the temples…"

When she finished her detailed description, the girls exchanged looks. Then, in unison, they said, "Twenty-nine Threadneedle, second floor, room twelve."

Irene kept her expression carefully blank- it would disappoint them to see her lose her composure. "How did you all know that?"

"A man told us," Maggie said. "A Chinaman, or maybe an Indian. I dunno- he could have been anyone."

Irene's fingernails dug into her palms. Holmes!

The girls held their breath around her, waiting for her response.

She turned to them, smiling beatifically, and clapped her hands. "Well done! You passed the test."

Irene caught a hansom cab to Threadneedle Street. Part of her wondered if the information was intended as a trap, but she remained mostly curious. Twenty-Three served as an inn; how could she get inside without arousing the innkeeper's suspicions? She knew all too well that the more unsavory members of London's criminal underworld usually looked after their own…

Aha.

Ducking into an alleyway, Irene unpinned her hair, letting it tumble over her shoulders. She pulled one of the silk flowers from her hat and tucked it behind her ear, then attached a pin to the front of her blouse, lowering the neckline. Finally, she applied another coat of rouge to her lips and cheeks. Yes, she could certainly pass as a high-class prostitute.

The disguise worked, and she made her way up to the second floor without comment, the stairs creaking under her feet. To her surprise, the twelfth room's door opened at the slightest touch. She stepped inside-

And laughed.

Mr. Martinson sat in a chair in the center of the room, neatly tied ropes binding his limbs. Upon seeing Irene, he glared at her and attempted to say something, but the gag in his mouth prevented speech. Around his chest ran a perfectly tied red bow, such as the sort that fastened heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. A slip of paper attached to the bow bore the following inscription: From: S. Holmes. To: . Happy Valentine's Day!

It took Irene several minutes to stop chuckling.

A.N.

Hi! This will probably be the second-to-last chapter… one more than I said I'd post, yeah. To make up for not actually posting this on Valentine's Day, I've decided to include a little list of books/websites that I find completely invaluable when writing fanfiction for this fandom.

Websites:

Victorian Dictionary (just google it.) Basically everything you'll ever need re:Victorian England knowledge. Be warned, though- this site is ADDICTIVE.

Books:

The entire Sherlock Holmes canon. Yes, I know there are lots of long words and stories that don't have Irene in them (sadfaaace!) but it's great for headcanon, and you can get it on an Iphone for *free!*

Complete Stories of the Great Operas. Okay, I could just look 'em up on Wikipedia, but books are cool.

Deadly Doses: A Writer's Guide to Poisons. …I don't think I need to explain this one.

If you're planning to write smut, whether for the shkinkmeme over at LJ or for any other website, (or any other fandom for that matter,) I'd advise you to pick up "BDSM for Writers" and "How to Be A Sex-Writing Strumpet," both of which are available on e-readers for pretty gosh-darned cheap. The second one's kind of invaluable. Badly written smut = DNW, no?

Anyway, thanks for reading my fics! Heart you lots! 3


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